8 Ways To Drive Your eZine Subscriber Numbers Through The Roof

By Richard WildmanPosted Thursday, October 28, 2004

Quick ways to boost the number of subscribers to your ezine
Building up an optin list from the ground up can be quite a task.

How do you build an optin list? Lets assume you are planning on publishing your own ezine, as most of the top internet gurus do and recommend, or you could be trying to gain more subscribers for your existing ezine.

How do you get started? Where do your subscribers come from?

Well, there are a number of ways to get new subscribers:

1. Convert visitors to your web site into subscribers 2. By joining an ezine Subscription Co-op 3. Past customers or enquirers 4. Purchase a list of subscriber names and email addresses 5. Join a subscribers for adverts programme 6. From readers of your articles or eBooks 7. By submitting your details to an ezine directory 8. Ad swaps with other publishers

Lets go through these in some more detail.

1. Your web site

If your web site has a decent volume of traffic, then you should consider adding a subscription box to each of your pages. This could be a simple sidebar that briefly details your ezine and lets the visitor submit their email address.

If your web site has only a few visitors, then it is still worth adding a subscription sidebar, or other method, for taking signups, but you will also need to look at ways to build your traffic. One simple way is to use the hit exchanges. This on its own is not the answer, but its a start. To find out more about hit exchanges, see my article, "Building a Self Sustaining Traffic Dynamo" at: (http://www.ebizlightning.com/newsletter).

2. Ezine Subscription

Co-op Members of the Co-op place a small piece of HTML onto their web site, people that visit the web site of a Co-op member are shown a small pop under window that allows them to subscribe to other Co-op members' e-zines. The visitor to the web site subscribes to the e-zine(s) of his/her choice.

That's the basics of how the system works, but don't let the simplicity fool you, it works and brings lots of new subscribers to Co-op members each day.

One such Co-op is Subscription Rocket. They can be found at: (http://www.subscriptionrocket.com/cgi-bin/r.cgi?r=2157)

3. Past customers or enquirers

If you are selling products online, you could add details of your ezine onto your thank you page, allowing purchasers to sign up there and then.

If you have kept contact details of past customers, you could contact them and offer them a free subscription to your ezine.

4. Buy Subscribers

Should you buy subscribers? If so, where from? Will you be getting quality subscribers, or, worst case scenario, will you be accused of spamming and potentially have your site closed down because the subscribers you have bought did not truly opt in. Before signing up to buy subscribers make sure you do your home work and find out whether the subscribers are opt-in or double opt-in.

A service I have used for purchasing subscribers is OptInCity. Unlike some of the other services I have used, I have only received quality subscribers and also have found the level of support to be very good. Go to (http://optincity.com/p/?i=432) to find out.

5. Ads for subs

Should you swap subscribers for adverts? In this scenario, you sign up to the service and they will send you opt-in subscribers. In exchange for joining your list, you agree to run an advert for each of these new subscribers.

Before joining one of these programmes, make sure that the subscribers you get are true opt-in subscribers, preferably double opt-in and that the subscription addresses are true addresses and not autoresponders or unknown addresses.

These services can send you quite a few subscribers and if your ezine is only published monthly you may become overrun with adverts!

I have used EzineKing for this and have been very happy with the results. They make sure that each subscriber is fully opted in and has a valid email address. They can be found at: (http://www.ezineking.com)

6. Your articles or eBooks

One good way of gaining subscribers is by writing articles for an ezine, such as I am doing here. Over time you will start to get your name known, but in the short term, you are able to place a 'resource box' at the end of your article with some information about your ezine.

We can take the article writing idea a step further. Have you ever considered writing your own eBook? This need not be difficult. There are a number of great resources out there to help with this. Have a look at: (http://hop.clickbank.net/?ebizlight/ebksecrets)

7. Ezine Directory

Ezine directories let you enter your ezine details, so that would be subscribers can search and browse to find ezines that match their preferences. Whilst I have not received many subscribers this way, I have found it a useful source of joint venture opportunities. Other eZine owners will check through the lists to find similar ezines that they can approach to do advert swaps with or cross promote each others products, etc.

An ezine directory that mau be worth a look is: (http://www.ezinelocator.com)

8. Ad swaps

You are not alone! All your fellow publishers out there are looking for more subscribers and most of them are often willing to consider swapping adverts with you.

There are a number of sites running advert swapping services. You can find ezine owners that are interested in doing ad swaps by registering with the following:

(http://www.bizpromo.com/ezinetrades.htm)

======================================================== If you want to really take your Ezine to the next level check out The Ezine Resource Guide at (http://www.ebizlightning.com/ezineres) For more articles like this, take a look at our bi-monthly ezine, eBiz Lightning, at (http://www.ebizlightning.com) ========================================================

About the Author
Richard is a Microsoft Certified Solution Developer specialising in providing internet and database solutions. For hot new articles and tips for internet marketing, go to (http://www.eBizLightning.com)